by Ruby Loren
Tiff’s own eyes widened in understanding. “No… wait! She’s okay. She doesn’t need an ambulance!” she yelled again.
“I… I’m fine,” I said, standing up and hoping I looked shaky. “I slipped. I just need somewhere to sit down.”
“Take her into the office building,” Tiff ordered, grabbing a couple of gawking caretakers and shoving them towards me.
It wasn't entirely surprising that most people in the reception lobby were looking my way by now.
“Has someone called an ambulance?” I heard a woman say.
I shook my head. “No, I’m fine! It looks much worse than it is,” I said, wondering if I’d squeezed the tube of joke-shop blood too hard. “A glass of water and a good sit down will sort me out. There are first aid supplies upstairs,” I said, having no idea if it was really true (after all, the office was in dire need of a refurb) but wanting to get upstairs above all else. It was the only way to get the plan back on track.
I threw a final meaningful look in Auryn’s direction to let him know that Plan B also doubled up as his distraction. He nodded and slipped away through the crowd - hopefully towards the back entrance of the offices.
At the same time as I was unceremoniously dumped in a plastic office chair I heard Auryn shouting that there was a fire in the office and that he’d (hopefully not actually) called the fire brigade. The two caretakers turned to help me back downstairs but I’d had enough of this tomfoolery. I stood up and did my best to wipe away the fake blood. “I’m fine… get to safety! Tiff and I will handle the fire,” I said, before running off in the direction of the billowing smoke. I wondered if they thought I was brave or just mad. Either way, they didn’t follow us.
“What do we do now?” Tiff asked, her voice muffled by her jacket. We were trying to remain concealed by the smoke, whilst not breathing in too much of it.
“Wait,” I said.
We didn’t have to wait for long.
Jenna Leary, the head of the reception team, appeared at the head of the stairs. I noticed that Tiff didn’t betray any surprise. Jenna had been one of my forerunners, too. She definitely liked the company of men and hadn’t she mentioned to me the other day how much she liked crime novels?
I stepped forwards out of the smoke with Tiff on my heels. Where is she going? I wondered and was forced to duck back into the smoke when Jenna stalked our way.
To my disbelief, she kept going straight through the smoke and made it all the way to the back entrance stairs of the office. If there’d been a real fire, she’d have been toast!
Tiff and I followed her down, both wondering if she somehow knew this whole thing was a trick.
“She’s in the staffroom,” I said, seeing Jenna’s receding form through the smoke.
I hurried forwards with Tiff, but we lost sight of Jenna. The smoke bomb Auryn had managed to buy when he’d rushed into town was a pretty hefty one.
I spotted Jenna just as she closed the door of the staffroom cloakroom behind her, clearly on her way back out.
“No…” I said when she somehow managed to slip into the smoke again. She’d been heading in the direction of reception. If she got away from me now, it would be a disaster! Everyone in the entire zoo was currently assembled out the front in the car park waiting for the fire to be put out. It was the biggest audience Jenna could have wished for to pull her little stunt!
Through sheer luck, Tiff and I managed to somehow overtake her in the smoke. We nearly collided when we arrived in the clear air of reception. In the distance, I could hear Auryn shouting that it was a false alarm - just someone’s idea of a practical joke. I couldn’t hear any sirens, so that was something at least.
Jenna looked at us in surprise before realisation dawned on her face.
“Jenna, I think it’s time you gave up those photos,” Tiff said.
Knowing that talking someone down was definitely her forte, I stayed mute and nodded my agreement.
Jenna’s dark eyes skated from one of us to the other.
Then she ran for the car park.
“Fantastic,” I muttered before doing my best to run after her. At five foot nothing, I wasn’t exactly a natural sprinter. Unfortunately, Tiff wasn’t either, and Jenna soon built up a lead.
In the midst of the crowd of people I saw Auryn frantically gesticulating at something. I followed his pointing finger and saw a classic car had just pulled up. The door opened and a dark-haired young woman stepped out.
She was wearing a wedding dress.
The fact that Jenna needed to stop in order to make her sordid announcement was my saving grace. When she opened her mouth, I leapt on top of her, hitting the ground for the second time that day.
Stephen McClean looked over at us and turned pale. If I’d needed any further confirmation that we had our woman - that was it.
“Diana, darling! What are you doing?” he asked, the day’s stress showing in his voice.
His other half clearly shared his penchant for dramatic gestures because she never faltered.
“We’re getting married today. Surprise!”
“Married?” Stephen repeated, his voice jumping up a whole octave before he cleared his throat. “That’s lovely. I’m just… not very well dressed,” he covered.
If I hadn’t currently been wrestling with Jenna - who had just tried to bite me - I would have rolled my eyes at that pathetic excuse. For a writer, he was pants at thinking up a good cover story.
“Let me go!” Jenna said, gnashing her teeth when I tried to cover her mouth. Unfortunately, she was quite a lot larger than me, and I was seconds away from being mashed into the ground. To my relief Tiff arrived, having run beautifully (but very slowly). Together, we managed to keep Jenna silent whilst gradually dragging her away from the excitable crowd.
Everything was going to be okay. We had Jenna. Presumably, she had the photos somewhere about her person. The day was saved!
“That’s her! The maniac! Who let her in to this event? She’s a psychotic super-fan. She’s even fabricated images of me to try to smear my reputation!” Stephen McClean burst out, pointing in Jenna’s direction.
Everyone turned to stare at our little posse of three.
It turns out, it’s quite hard to point with a great degree of accuracy. As a result, we each found ourselves under scrutiny.
“Well, don’t just stand there… stop her!” McClean continued, just as vaguely.
Jenna used the moment of uncertainty to her advantage and slipped free from our grasp. Then, she sprinted back towards the zoo.
After a moment’s hesitation spent taking in the rather threatening press heavies, I followed, leaving Tiff to talk her way out of it. No one in their right mind was going to mistake Tiff for someone with an unhealthy obsession. Me on the other hand…
“What is going on?” I heard Erin Avery shout over the rising clamour as I ran after Jenna.
This day can’t get any worse! I thought to myself.
I was wrong.
The last thing I heard before I ran back into the zoo was the sound of a siren blaring.
The fire brigade had arrived.
4
The not so Great Escape
It was only when I got into the mostly deserted zoo and risked a glance back over my shoulder that I realised we weren’t being followed. I had a brief moment of relief before I comprehended that stopping Jenna was now entirely down to me. I was the only person who could end this ridiculous farce once and for all.
“Jenna!” I shouted before immediately giving up. She wasn’t stopping, and I needed to save my breath for running.
I saw Jenna turn the corner just past the meerkat enclosure and throw a surreptitious look my way before dodging into the staff only area.
Inside, I cursed. She was trying to double back. The entrance she’d just taken led out to a barn behind the zoo where a colony of feral cats lived. More importantly to Jenna, you could get back to the front of the zoo once you were out the back.
Or at least… you coul
d normally.
It was with a grim smile that I remembered Avery Zoo had just taken a large delivery of straw bales and no one had got round to moving them into the hay barn yet. That meant they’d been placed in a towering wall, completely blocking the way past the cat barn to the front of the zoo.
I’d expected Jenna to call it quits when faced with this insurmountable obstacle, but I was wrong - for what felt like the hundredth time that day. With surprising ease, she vaulted the fence surrounding the neighbouring fields, where the zoo’s grazing animals often spent their days.
You’ve got to be kidding, I thought as I rolled over the top of the wiry fence, knowing that fixing the damage was bound to be my job. I narrowly avoided hitting the ground on the other side before I halfheartedly jogged after Jenna again.
Of two things I was certain: firstly, Jenna did a lot more cardio than I did, and secondly, she really had it in for Stephen McClean. Whatever had happened between them, Jenna had taken it pretty personally. If it weren’t for the lengths I’d already gone to in order to curtail this unsightly reveal, I would have been tempted to let the pair of them hash it out.
“Jenna, look out!” I shouted.
The field we were currently running through was filled with one of the zoo’s herds of cows. This particular group had been back here for a while… because they weren’t exactly ‘visitor friendly’. They’d taken to butting small children at every opportunity. They’d clearly been missing their sport because a couple of crazy ladies running through their field had been too good to miss.
The herd were moving at a rather spritely pace towards Jenna, and I could tell they were on a collision course.
My voice must have conveyed the real chance of danger because Jenna looked over her shoulder. She squeaked when she saw the herd and her arms momentarily pistoned even faster. Unfortunately, her feet were no longer on the ground. Whilst looking over her shoulder, she neglected to look where she was going and stepped in a colossal cowpat. Her legs flew out from beneath her and she landed with a wet splat.
The only thing that stopped it from being funny was the charging herd of cows bearing down on her.
“Stop! Moo! Move! Go away! Come here!” I shouted at them, waving my arms to divert their attention.
The herd hesitated just a few metres away from Jenna. I held my breath when she rolled over in the muck, clearly dazed from the fall. Was she about to be trampled?
The lead cow turned away. I felt a stab of jubilation before realising that the entire herd was now stampeding towards me. And my legs were a good deal shorter than Jenna’s.
“Don’t look back,” I hissed to myself as I did the hundred metre sprint at a pace that would have astounded my secondary school PE teacher, had she been there to witness it. If I got out of this alive, perhaps I’d have a new fitness trend on my hands. Stampeding cow herd extreme sprinting.
I shook my head. Why was I thinking about fitness trends when I was about to be turned into a pancake?
I was so busy running I forgot to jump the fence. As a result, I sort of tripped over it and half-somersaulted onto the other side.
When the air had returned to my lungs I looked back across the field at Jenna. I may have saved her life, but she had a lead on me I’d never be able to make up now… and I thought this whole thing was just nuts enough for her to not give up, even now.
To my surprise, she was in the same place I’d seen her last. I watched as she walked around and bent down, picking up a few things before throwing them down in disgust.
“Ruined! Everything’s ruined!” she shouted, lifting her hands to her hair before looking down at them in disgust a moment later. I couldn’t help but grin. That cowpat was going to take a lot of washing to get rid of.
After a stern look in the direction of the cows, I decided to get back on the horse, so to speak. I rolled back over the fence and firmly pushed the lead cow’s nose away when she got too interested. These cows weren’t malicious, they just liked a bit of trouble. They were only truly dangerous when they’d gathered up so much speed that stopping became an impossibility. The initial surprise of people running though their field had faded, and I could tell they weren’t going to go in for round two.
I walked over to where Jenna was now crawling around in the grass, mud, and muck.
“Not a single one…” she muttered.
It only took a second for me to see what she was talking about.
Jenna had indeed been carrying the hard copies of the photographs she’d been using to threaten Stephen McClean. Now they were scattered amongst the mud and cowpats, nothing more than a few smears of coloured ink on paper, their subject unrecognisable.
5
Partners in Crime
It was a surprise when I discovered that Valentine’s Day was viewed as a huge success for Avery Zoo. The zoo’s safety measures when reacting to a potential fire had been applauded, Stephen McClean had been married in the restaurant - which was a registered wedding venue (albeit a seldom used one) - and no one had been forced to endure the appearance of some rather unsightly photos. As a final note, even the office workers were set to benefit. Auryn’s smoke bomb had left a permanent stink in the upstairs offices and it had finally been decreed that they needed refurbishing sooner rather than later.
The only person I’d assumed wouldn’t have such a happy ending was Jenna, but even then I’d been surprised. After the impromptu wedding, Erin Avery had called Jenna, Auryn, Stephen McClean, and me into the larger, smoke-free conference room in the restaurant. There, he’d asked for the crime writer’s verdict on what should be done next.
Jenna hadn’t flinched or even looked worried. Instead, she’d seemed just as defiant as ever, blaming Stephen McClean for ruining her novel with a deliberate act of sabotage - because he saw her as a competitor.
McClean had replied saying he had no idea what she was talking about, so Jenna had gone on to explain that he’d allegedly once claimed he would help her to get published. When she’d tried to engage with him again (I assumed by that she meant her misguided blackmail-type text message) he’d hacked her laptop and deliberately deleted her novel-in-progress.
“But obviously I said all that stuff because I…” he’d cleared his throat. “I mean, what did you think I could do? I’m just a writer! I’m not the boss. I didn’t even know you had a novel and I definitely didn’t mean to have it deleted.”
Jenna had looked even more enraged and had responded claiming he’d known full well that she was a talented writer and the fact he’d had a hacker destroy her work was proof of that.
McClean had then gone on to say that she was crazy (again) and that he wouldn’t be at all surprised if she started claiming he stole the plot of his newest book from her. Of course, Jenna had picked up one of the first edition copies, skimmed the blurb, and then claimed exactly that.
I’d shared several exasperated looks with Auryn and Tiff while all of this had gone on before Erin Avery had finally stepped in with the air of a man dividing up squabbling children.
“Mr McClean, are you going to press charges?”
“What? Oh, I, ah… can’t really see a way to do that,” the crime writer had confessed. He’d then gone on to explain that it would be tricky given the lack of evidence and nothing was actually extorted from him. He’d also have to come clean about the existence of the photos if that were to be his decision. “So, let’s just call it quits,” he’d finished.
“At least you’re not being prosecuted,” I said to Jenna once we’d exited the restaurant leaving the writer and Erin Avery behind to conclude the day’s business. I found it hard to believe I was even bothering to console Jenna after what I’d been through today, but here I was…
“He just doesn’t want to share the limelight,” she said, her jaw clenched.
I found I couldn't argue with that.
“There are other ways to get your book out there if you’re serious about being a crime writer. You can submit it to agents, or you
could even go it alone and self-publish,” I said, hoping I was coming across as upbeat. “Lots of people do it nowadays.”
“What would you know about that?” Jenna said, turning her temper on me. “I don’t see you with any bestselling novels.”
“That’s true. I don’t write books… but I do have a webcomic,” I confessed, sharing this piece of information for the first time.
Jenna shrugged her shoulders like she couldn’t care less, but Auryn and Tiff both looked interested.
“It’s uh… not based on real people or anything,” I said.
“Sure,” Auryn said with a knowing grin. “You wrote a comic about the zoo?”
“Writing,” I corrected. “It’s an ongoing webcomic thing. I don’t make much money or anything. A few people donate sometimes, but that’s it. It’s just for fun.”
Jenna let out a noise of triumph at my apparent admission of failure.
“It’s a hobby,” I continued.
“You have to show us!” Tiff said, linking her long arm through my short one. “We should have a coffee together in the shop. I draw fantasy maps and sell them on Etsy,” she confided and then blushed - in a very un-Tiff-like way. “I don’t sell many… I mean, I sell a few, but…” she cleared her throat “…it’s just a hobby, too.”
“That’s amazing! You have to show me your maps,” I told her and she smiled back at me, her face alight with the knowledge of our shared love of creative pursuits.
“I don’t have any secret talents but comics sound awesome. What’s your comic called?” Auryn said, pulling out his phone.
“Monday’s Menagerie,” I told him, feeling both terrified and elated that people I knew personally were about to see my comic for the very first time. What would they think of it? Would they be brave enough to tell me if they thought it was unfunny, badly-drawn rubbish?
“Jenna, perhaps we could all collaborate on a project?” I said, giving the head of reception one last try.